Many services are offered by local service providers. Such services include, but are not limited to, telephone services, internet services, home shopping services, etc. Often, a local service provider does not offer expanded services, i.e., services outside of their service area. Thus, customers are forced to rely on larger, i.e., national and/or international, service providers for services provided outside the service area of the local service provider. For example, many local telephone service providers do not offer long distance service. Customers of the local providers rely on long distance companies for long distance telephone service. However, several problems are inherent when offering services through a secondary provider. One such problem is that the integration of services between the two providers is not streamlined, creating connection problems such as intermittent service and sometimes even total failure of the service. Other such problems include validating that a service is authorized or that it has been cancelled or revoked. Further, larger service providers often must rely on the local service providers to collect payment for the services rendered by the larger service providers.
Many of the larger service providers offer similar or the same services to customers of local service providers while simultaneously providing expanded services to the customers of the local service providers. This gives customers the option to choose alternate, and often more reliable, service. However, a larger service provider often is limited to utilizing the systems of the local service providers. For example, a large telephone company could offer localized services to customers but would have to utilize the existing wiring of the local telephone company in order to avoid the high cost of installing wiring between the customer and the large telephone company. Thus, the larger service provider is left at the mercy of the local service providers through which its services are offered, and which are often hostile to the larger service provider attempting to enter “their” market.
The end-to-end customer care workflow (order taking, local service provider (LSP) provisioning, customer billing, etc.) must be as efficient as possible. This process accounts for a large percentage of costs associated with acquiring and servicing customers. This process currently suffers from fallouts and errors caused by data integrity and process related issues. The inconsistencies associated with LSP processing further compounds this problem. Hence, the larger service provider must manage the end-to-end workflow, taking into account the inconsistencies of LSP provisioning while enabling low cost and high quality customer service.
It can be seen that there is a need for a management interface between a core telecommunication system and a local service provider to provide interconnection standards for a bi-directional flow of information.
It can also be seen that there is a need for a management interface between a core telecommunication system and a local service provider that is highly flexible and expandable to accommodate new products and services.